The "Ukrainska Pravda" information website quotes Piskun as saying yesterday that charges have been brought against Gongadze's assassins.

In a late evening interview with Ukraine's private Channel 5 television, Piskun reportedly said that "The case is considered closed insofar as charges have been brought against those who committed this crime."

Gongadze's beheaded body was found in a forest in the fall of 2000. Months later, a bodyguard to then-President Leonid Kuchma, Mykola Melnychenko, claimed he had made secret recordings purportedly proving the head of state was linked to the assassination. Kuchma has denied the claims.

Piskun said that among those charges in connection with Gongadze's murder is Oleksiy Pukach, a fugitive Interior Ministry general.

Pukach was arrested in October 2003 on charges of destroying official documents, but a court ordered his release a month later.